1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to building structures and refers more specifically to a sliding door which is esthetically pleasing, easily operated, has weathertight integrity to both air and water, has extremely high structural integrity and substantial universality of components whereby the greatest degree of versatility has been achieved from a specified inventory investment of raw material and finished goods at a relatively low cost. In one modification, the sliding door has been particularly structured to provide high efficiency and economy by modification of the sliding door frame and door panel extrusions and provision of a screen having an extruded frame with a single cross section and unique hardware.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, sliding doors have not generally included all mitered corners. In particular, the jambs at the bottoms of previous sliding doors have generally either been straight-cut across the sill, or where the sill has been inclined, the jambs have been diagonally cut, whereby a high degree of orientation is given to the frame members of previous sliding doors which is undesirable from an inventory and thus cost point-of-view. Further, wherein mitered corners have been provided in sliding doors in the past, no means have been provided to prevent misalignment of the mitered joints on securing the members forming the mitered joints to each other. Thus, mitered joints in the past have required skilled workmen to produce and have often been misaligned.
In addition, in prior sliding doors, either two pockets formed by three fins, one pocket for each of a movable and fixed door panel with a fin between the door panels, have been provided in the frame head, or alternatively, three pockets have been provided between two outer fins and two intermediate or guide fins in the frame head for guiding the top rails of a movable and a fixed door panel, with the guide fins received in slots in the door panel top rails. In both structures, considerable weather sealing and/or fabrication of weather seal interlocks on the door panels has been necessary. Again, the added weather sealing and fabrication together with the orientation which the fabrication and/or weather sealing require has given the components of and the finished door panels thus constructed has added an undesirable cost factor and inventory requirement to previous sliding doors.
Further, previous sliding doors have usually not been suitably weathertight without expensive and sometimes complicated structure. Thus, for example, a complete aluminum surround has often been provided in the past for glazing sliding door panels from the inside to prevent popping of the glazing panels out of the frame therefor under high wind loads. Complicated structure has sometimes been required to prevent entire sliding door panels from being blown out of the outer frame therefor.
In addition, with prior sliding doors, stopping of the sliding door on opening has sometimes been a problem. Wherein stops have been provided only at the tops or bottoms of the movable door panel, the door panel tends to cock in the frame on hitting the stop, thus wearing door panel rollers and damaging the outer frame or movable door panel. Prior stop structures have an addition also required separate fabrication of the frame member to install and sometimes themselves have been complicated and therefore expensive. Central stops have in general not been utilized due to their appearance and the fact that they tend to damage the door and/or frame members due to single-point contact therewith centrally thereof.
Further, with prior sliding doors it has often been possible on jiggling the movable door panel to unlock it and to gain entrance into the building in which the doors have been installed. It has generally been impossible with sliding doors to lock the movable door panel in a partly open position to provide, for example, ventilation without allowing small children to go out or prowlers to come in the doors.
Also, it has been difficult in the field, with the size of sliding doors usually installed today, to obtain square structural openings for the sliding door structures. It has therefore been necessary to adjust the movable door panel of sliding doors to compensate for the out-of-square door openings. In the past, such adjustment has usually been accomplished by adjusting the movable door panel at both sides thereof, which requires separate adjusting mechanisms and separate adjustments which are not entirely independent at both sides of the movable door panels.
The sliding screen doors provided with the sliding door structures of the past have usually had roll formed frames and have been required to have deep pockets in the upper and lower frame rails to receive adjustable rollers at the corners of the screen doors. The frame members have therefore often been of different cross section and have not always been provided with mitered corners. In addition, in the past, screen members have been secured to the frames in rectangular recesses receiving either round or rectangular splines. Such structure has not always securely held the periphery of the screen to the frame. Separate handle and locking structures have usually been provided with prior sliding screen doors.
Further, in the past, sliding doors have not always been adapted for installation in a wide variety of building structures with a single frame, as for example, building structures which require nailing fins for securing the frame to the exterior of the building structure. In addition, neither interior nor exterior trim for sliding doors have normally been readily available and extensions of sliding door frame sills have in the past generally been field fabricated.